Couples Therapy

01 / The work

Understanding the relationship as a living system

I do not begin by deciding which partner is the problem. A couple forms an emotional system in which each person’s fears, longings, protections, and ways of reaching for connection affect the other. What looks like anger may be a protest against disconnection. What looks like indifference may be an attempt to prevent overwhelm, failure, or further hurt.

We slow the cycle down enough to see how it is organized: what activates it, what each person feels but cannot yet say, how each reacts, and how those reactions confirm the other person’s deepest fear. Naming this pattern helps the couple stand together against the cycle rather than treating one another as the enemy.

02 / The work

Attachment theory, neuroscience, and Bowenian differentiation

Secure connection matters, but closeness alone is not the goal. Healthy partnership also asks each person to remain present as a distinct adult—to speak honestly, tolerate difference, regulate intensity, and take responsibility for the impact of their behavior. My understanding of couples is grounded in attachment theory, interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), developmental neuroscience, and the work of Dan Siegel and Allan Schore. These perspectives help us understand how early relationships shape the nervous system, how partners regulate and dysregulate one another, and why certain moments of disconnection can feel so immediate and powerful.

Bowenian differentiation work adds an equally important dimension: the capacity to remain emotionally connected while developing a clear, grounded self. I help partners hold both truths—we affect one another deeply, and each of us remains responsible for how we participate. This may mean helping a withdrawing partner stay emotionally reachable, helping a pursuing partner express vulnerability without attack, or helping both partners distinguish a legitimate need from an attempt to control the other’s inner life. When harm has occurred, repair requires clear accountability, empathy, and dependable change.

03 / The work

Creating a different experience in the room

Insight is useful, but couples change through new relational experiences. In session, I may help you speak directly to one another, track what happens in the body as closeness or conflict intensifies, and stay with the softer emotion beneath a familiar defense. We practice moments of truth, contact, limit-setting, receiving, and repair while there is enough support to do something different.

The aim is not a conflict-free relationship. It is a relationship with greater honesty, emotional safety, vitality, and capacity to recover—one in which neither partner must disappear in order to belong.

04 / What change may look like

More freedom where it matters.

Progress may look like recognizing the cycle sooner, speaking from vulnerability rather than accusation, hearing difficult truth without collapsing or retaliating, repairing injuries more fully, and making clearer choices about the relationship you are willing to create together.